Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2009. Pennsylvania Avenue and surrounding areas will be subject to strict security during the Inauguration that may affect the homeless.Salvation Army branches in cities such as Jackson, Miss., and Tuscaloosa, Ala., have been working closely with their respective cities to provide a warm place to stay and a hot meal for those in need.
"We're part of a city wide freeze plan that goes into effect when the weather is like this," reported Major Mark Smith to location station WVUA-TV in Tuscaloosa.
"What that basically means is that we don't turn anybody away. Whether it means we have to sleep in cots in the hallway or find other rooms, no one gets turned away in this weather," he said.
In Minneapolis, Minn., The Salvation Army's Harbor Light shelter in downtown Minneapolis usually houses about 450 people a night. But the shelter was expecting more than 500 Wednesday night.
"We make use of every available floor space in our facility so individuals do not find themselves outside in the cold," reported Major Darryl Leedom, commander of the Greater Twin Cities Salvation Army, according to a local NBC affiliate.
Furthermore, the charity groups are not just waiting for people to come to them. Staff members in many cities have been going as far as searching for those who need a place to stay. And for those homeless people who don't want to leave their campsites, The Salvation Army has been making meals available near homeless areas from mobile vans and keeping blankets on-hand.
"With hypothermia, you go to shivering, you get unconscious, you get confused, those kind of things," said Steven Jones, a spokesman for American Medical Response.
"If you don't seek help or get inside where it's warm it can lead to death," he told a local NBC affiliate station in Jackson.
According to reports, the bitter cold has stretched from Montana to Maine and as far south as Georgia, driving people to pile on layers upon layers if they had to go out, and keeping some children home from school.
In some places, the temperature was the lowest it'd been in years, including Chicago, where it was 11 below zero at O'Hare International Airport Thursday morning – the coldest daytime temperature in more than a decade.
The city of Pollack, S.D., set a record when temperatures dropped to 47 below zero. And in Glenwood, Minn., where the temperature was 29 degrees below zero on Thursday morning, the wind chill made it a staggering 54 degrees below zero.
Forecasters said temperatures in the upper Midwest could turn into the coldest in years as Arctic air keeps spilling southward from Canada.
On Friday, temperatures plummeted across the Midwest and eastern U.S., and delivered a stinging slap to Southerners unaccustomed to the frigid weather.